Lost Soldiers
by nothing-chan
Summary: "Were you alone when you died? Were you lost? Please tell me I'm not the only one." Bodies were being tossed onto a pile, human ash spraying everywhere and blocking the silver stars of night. Soldiers were raining from the sky, landing onto Jean as he began to shake uncontrollably. "What am I supposed to do?"


The limp shell in his arms swung as Jean walked away.

"Eh-Ah! Excuse me! …It would be better to put the body on the cart, it could be dangerous."

"'S fine."

Marco would not make him sick, he never once did.

"I'll carry him there."

Not even when he vomited all over Jean's feet when they were still in training.

All of the people ceased their collection, cradling fleshy slabs of skin and half-burnt feet to their chests and watching, watching so closely Jean could feel the eyes sewn to the back of his neck, watching as he stalked off, incomplete body slumped in his arms.

Most people who were killed by a Titan left nothing behind, so he was lucky to have this much, and he would never let it be pitched to the bottom of a pile.

He walked, turning street corner after shattered street corner, dancing over paths made entirely of debris, pace a steady rhythm matched only by the bouncing of a lifeless arm against his thigh.

He was lost, though he knew exactly where he was and precisely where he was going. He was alone; Marco's body the only unequivocal thing around, the rest filled with shattered windows and panting bricks. He was so lost it hurt to breath.

"Did I ever tell you how angry I am, Marco?"

Marco was silent.

"I'm sure you knew how angry Eren made me, or how mad I got at people pretending to be heroes, but what I was mostly angry at was myself."

Jean's toe caught on a jagged stone and he tripped, stuttering lightly on his feet before regaining his balance, the corpse in his hands unperturbed. His words echoed all around, reached up at the sky and grasped the redness of a fire scorching in the distance, the sun low beyond the walls.

He did not continue his point, instead slipping into muteness as the world crackled around him. Marco stared straight ahead, an oblivion gaze that withered away hope and despair and the meaning of things. Lost.

"I used to think you were the idiot, but I think you're a lot smarter than me, or anyone, Marco."

"You saw in people what they refused to see, then you told them, and that's hard to do."

"But it's the right thing to do."

Jean sidestepped a blown out door and turned into a cleared out street, empty, but still cleaner than where he was before. He was getting closer to the fire, the smog was stuck to his eyelashes and pieces of ash were floating on the film of Marco's wide open irises.

Jean was not one for emotion, he was strong, stalwart, tough, unbreakable, but he felt the foreign chokehold against the back of his throat, wringing out his body until he puked water from his tear ducts. He held it back, secured his grip on Marco, marched forward again.

"I don't think I ever told you when I was sad, either."

He could hear the sound of people in the distance; low rumbles of dismal conversation that made his stomach lurch and his feet halt again, not even two steps away from where he once was.

"What am I supposed to do? There are so many things I want to tell you but you aren't listening."

Marco did not flinch.

"Were you alone when you died? Were you lost? Please tell me I'm not the only one."

Bodies were being tossed onto a pile, human ash spraying everywhere and blocking the silver stars of night. Soldiers were raining from the sky, landing onto Jean as he began to shake uncontrollably.

"Do you regret it, Marco? Do you regret being a soldier? Do you regret fighting Titans? Would you do anything differently? Answer me, Marco."

Marco curled into Jean's chest as he caved in on himself, sweating and dripping onto the crusted blood that had flaked off onto his immaculate uniform, filling the cracks of the leather with remnants of a once great boy.

Marco was not the one trembling, but would have been completely still if Jean did not have a deathly hold on him. The openness of his bones jingled with every quiver.

"What am I supposed to do?"

* * *

The man looked up from over his shielded face, a dead body stark in front of him, a simple soldier on the other end, eyes red from the ash, face drained.

"His name was Marco Bodt."

The soldier held the body out, hands teetering from lack of sleep and fragments of battle.

"Put him on the top of the pile."

* * *

_Hello._

_I can't say... I like this? But I'm... dying over JeanMarco rn. I'll probably end up deleting it and redoing it but we'll see._

_For now this is me puking over soldiers sshhjfjgggggggggggggggggggggggggggg. Jean's really not as dense as he seems and I think Marco's death broke him so much, I don't even want to think about it._

_So please review, favorite, and enjoy your day._


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